Paramaribo – the capital of Suriname

After a few days in the jungle on the Maroni river (I will share more about the stay later, as we are not done exploring just yet), we decided that we were going to “cheat” a little bit, and travel to French Guyana’s neighboring country Suriname by car instead of by boat. You can cross the border just by taking a pirogue boat 10 minutes from our anchorage, and drive about 2.5 hours to reach Paramaribo, which is the capital of Suriname.

If we were to sail to this destination, we would have to motor waaaay up the Suriname River, only to find ourselves at an anchorage far from the city. There is no anchorage for sailboats in Paramaribo, only a commercial port. So, we took the tip from David, the head of the yacht club in St. Laurent (where we are anchored), and went for a long weekend in the big city.This will be our first big city since leaving Cape Town on October 1st. None of us are really missing the buzz and noise of big cities, but we do look forward to having a couple of nights at a hotel, with access to a hot shower as much as we want. 😍Suriname is also covered in rainforest (about 94% of the country is covered in it) and on our drive towards the city, we basically saw tons of trees, and the occasional little village with a few houses. Suriname only has about 600k inhabitants, of which about 100k are illegals from nearby countries like Brazil.Whereas French Guyana is considered still a part of France and the EU, Suriname is no longer considered an overseas territory of the Netherlands, which was the last country to colonize Suriname before they became independent. Hence, the official language is Dutch. The Dutch are normally very good at English and very international, so we were a little surprised to find that there is very little information to be found in English here, f. ex. are all of the signs at the most popular museum here in Dutch only.Paramaribo is the capital of Suriname, with about 230k inhabitants. It is situated on the Suriname River, close to the Atlantic coast.

The old part of the city is on the Unesco Word Heritage list, and consists of many beautiful colonial style wooden houses. You are not allowed to tear them down, and they are mostly maintained in a beautiful condition, as opposed to what we have witnessed in French Guiana.

We also visited the Fort Zeeland, which hosts a museum sharing the history of the city, as well as several artifacts from all of the different people you can find in this melting pot.

Suriname is influenced obviously by the Dutch, but also by Indonesia, as this also used to be a Dutch colony. There is also quite a large African population, due to the descendant of slaves who have settled here, as well as a large group of Chinese and Indian people. And, of course the native people who lived here, and are also symbolized in the national flag – the Amerindians.This multicultural mix means you have a lot of great food to chose between, and that is largely what we have spent the most of our time here doing. Eating out an enjoying really fabulous food! Our favorite was actually a Thai restaurant called Garden of Eden, which came highly recommended by David.

After having toured the city for a couple of days, we decided to just relax and enjoy the hotel pool during our last day. We are starting to plan our last leg to get to the Caribbean, and are leaving this city well rested and ready for a last couple of days in French Guiana before we take off.